


In Four to Seven Words

by HypnosThanatosTwin



Series: Words to Find your Soul [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, It's pretty dark, Lewis' A+ Parenting, M/M, Mental Instability, Suicide Attempt, but it gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 03:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5990005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HypnosThanatosTwin/pseuds/HypnosThanatosTwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The words appear when you are six to seven. After that life goes on and you wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Four to Seven Words

**Author's Note:**

> Jumping on the ship of coldwave. I couldn't resist and I needed to vent my emotions after 1x04 of Legends of Tomorrow. Hope you enjoy the ride.

**In Four to Seven Words**

The words appear when kids are six or seven, no-one knows why. There have been studies and theories but nothing could be proven. The only thing that is certain is that the words are a clue to find your soul-mate. The one person to make you complete. Some people never get one, very few people have two or three on their body. But most of them do have at least one. A word or a sentence. The first thing your soul-mate will say to you.

His words appear when he is exactly six and a half, his father has been in prison for 83 days now and life hadn't gotten easier because of it. His mum was struggling to keep their home and the money for food, water, electricity. On top of that she just found out that she was pregnant again, one of the conjugal visits getting lucky. Truth be told, he has other things to worry about. 

He feels the heat as the words form, like blood dripping across his skin, but he ignores it. He is about to steal his eighth wallet to pay for the bills that have been accumulating. It makes his mum sad when he gives her the money, but she doesn't tell him to stop, so he wont. They get by like this.

Of course he looks at them. Can read them perfectly, even if their scrawl is nothing like his precise letters. Seven words and a question mark, black against the pale skin of his inner thigh. He tells no-one.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

His sister is four years, seven months and 16 days old when their father gets out of prison and returns home. Lewis Snart has words but they don't match with their moms, their love not born from fate, but from circumstance. His father is different after prison, he wants to teach them, make them stronger, better, _colder_. 

The first lessons are just Len, Lisa far too young to be roped into heists. But Len is eleven years and ten months old, he can handle himself. That is until he makes a mistake and earns his first bruise. It is not his last. He's not fast enough, not strong enough, not precise enough, not _good_ enough. There comes a point, after he stopped counting the bruises and started counting the scars (seventeen) when he has a moment of weakness and finds himself in a bathtub with a blade against his wrist. 

He's thirteen and his chest feels like a black hole, every breath he takes, he takes in fear and he can't stand it. He is planning the cuts and puts the tip of the knife into the nook of his elbow, imagining the slash up to his wrist, when his gaze falls onto the words on his thigh. 

A sob escapes him and the knife drops away, outside the tub. He is shaking and tears leak down his cheeks, down his neck into the warm water. He covers his eyes with his hands, shielding himself from what he was about to do. 

“Yes.” he sobs and whispers and croaks again and again. “I wish you would.”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Lisa is seven when her lessons start. The first time she is bruised something hardens inside him, burns so hot it makes him shiver. He makes sure to avert the punishments towards himself, to get her away when the glint in their fathers eyes appears. He is almost successful, but he can't be there all the time. 

One year later their father throws a bottle at his sister, giving her a scar (it is the first out of two) and Len shakes with a fury that makes his vision go white as he cleans up his sisters blood. It is then, that they run away for the first time. 

They make it for 36 days before they are swept up from the streets and social services bring them home. There are questions, suspicions and long worrying looks, but their dad has a hand on their shoulders and their mom is crying in the kitchen, so they tell them nothing.

It is not long before the routine continues. Len is counting the days until he is eighteen (1.409 days). The months his dad is in prison from time to time help and make things worse at the same time. He makes it with 38 scars and a heart so frozen even his sister has difficulties getting through to him. 

On his eighteenth birthday he leaves, holding the hand of his baby-sister , turning his back towards his mother (who never helped anyway). Two months later, when his father lands himself in prison for twenty years after a heist that shouldn't have gone wrong, but somehow did spectacularly (they should have checked the alarms for hidden signals, even the owner of said alarms was surprised about), he feels almost free for the first time. 

His sister begins laughing again and it almost feels like victory.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

His words are spoken and he almost misses it. Replying on instinct. 

He's in a bar, not legally old enough to drink, but he doesn't drink anyway, except for a beer or two. His crew is meeting up with a rivalling group, he had just been hired as a cracker, unfamiliar with the dynamics of the group and beginning to regret joining the team as the insults take a turn to dangerous and the tension between the groups rises like a tidal wave about to crash. 

“Can I set something on fire now?” the built man beside him asks, voice like gravel cutting through the tension and Len answers like reflex.

“I wish you would.” that's when the brawl starts and it is only afterwards, when the man grabs him and pulls him with him, away from the approaching sirens that the words crash over him and he has to stop himself from stumbling in shock as they run, from stopping and looking, touching, basking.

He gets pulled into an apartment-building, up four flights of stairs and into an empty apartment.

That's were they stop. They stop and catch their breath and look.

The man is maybe two years older than Len (two years, two months and two days) and he is built like a brick wall. His eyes are hazel with a glint to them that is the opposite of what he is used to, instead of cold judgement he sees heat, warmth, safety.

Tentatively he reaches out and his fingertips meet firm muscles and warm skin. Their gazes never waver from each other. 

“I wish you would.” Len says again and he mirrors the shiver going through the man. Strong hands grab him, pull him close, closer, until their bodies are aligned and their heads are resting on the others shoulder. 

“Can I set something on fire now?” the voice much softer now but the words a perfect match. Len closes his eyes. _Yes_.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-  
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Mick is almost eight when his words appear. Four tiny, precisely written words appear on his left side, just under his rib-cage. He sighs in relief.

He doesn't tell the foster-parents number three about them and he wont be telling the social workers. The doctors write them in their files but don't speak of them. He burns the files every-time he gets the opportunity. He is getting quite good at breaking into half secure buildings and stealing files. 

Foster-mom number twelve sees them when she walks in on him changing clothes and she coos at them as if they were hers. He burns the house down and doesn't care if the others get out in time (they do, though not unscathed). 

He leaves this incident behind himself with a half-year visit to a mental hospital and an angry red scar running down the right side of his neck, arm and ribs. His thoughts are tumbling, concentration is hard. He gets easily distracted (he told them the meds made him worse). 

The flames are the only thing that can pull his focus, can make his thoughts slow down to a bearable speed. He relishes in the light, heat, _fire_ it brings to his mind. The only other thing that can focus him are the words. His fingertips caressing the black lines.

He is brought back to the hospital four more times the next ten years. They keep trying new things. Some _help_ , but they turn his thoughts dull and boring and make him feel less than he knows he is. Most make it worse. 

On his fifth visit he burns the place down (he makes sure the patients get out, doesn't really care for the doctors). He disappears in the chaos and goes through withdrawal from his meds in a run down flat in a closed of building. Afterwards he takes a few jobs as muscle, he has worked out (not much else to do, when they don't tie you down, but don't let you out). He learns more about breaking and entering, alarm systems and forensic counter-measures on these jobs than he had known before and it makes him proud. 

Sometimes he thinks about the words and worries that they are not spoken in approval, but that they are something said to deny him. Something said to throw him aside, something disapproving. Sometimes he covers them with his hand (it is not difficult now, he is nine-teen and there are only four words) and he closes his eyes and prays that they will be spoken the way he imagines them to be spoken. (With joy, warmth, fire, _love_ ).

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He's twenty-two and he's about to be in a bar fight. The group he's currently part of exchanging barbs and wires with some other gang. He doesn't care for the words, he gets caught up in the tension, adrenalin and enjoys the anticipation. The others in the group had stopped him from lighting up a match all day and he was looking forward to having a little fun.

“Can I set something on fire now?” he asks the new kid, just hired by the boss. Blue eyes slide over the gang and four words stop his heart.

“I wish you would.” its spoken like a demand and he can't help himself but want to follow it. When he grabs the kid by his arm and they run along, away from the police, at least three things in the bar are burning.

They end up in one of the empty apartments Mick had scouted out before this meeting and for a moment everything is still. Blue, blue eyes are studying him with an intensity, he can feel the gaze scorch along his skin. And then their eyes meet and Mick has to stop himself from reaching out. 

What he sees is broken in many places, healed in some, still bleeding in others and he knows he has to stay were he is. He doesn't have to wait long, as the kid steps forward and tentatively reaches out. The tips of his fingers are cold against Micks skin, focussing his mind like nothing could before. He shivers with want and the other does as well.

“I wish you would.” he hears the words again, wistful, hopeful, waiting. 

It is all the permission he needs to pull the skinny kid (compared to him anyway) closer until he is satisfied, until he can breathe him in with every breath, feel all his warmth against his skin.

He presses a smile into the kids neck, wide and mad and so relieved.

“Can I set something on fire now?” 

_Yes._

-.-.-.-.-.-.-  
The End

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :) Hope you liked it.


End file.
